Disappear Here (2008)

self-released

My mother always make fruitcakes with crystallized fruit, which I hate to death, but she just never gets it. Therefore, every time my mother bakes a fruitcake, we go through the same choreography. I ask if there was any crystallized fruit in it; she answers 'no'; and I start eating. After a while, I...Login to Rate

My mother always make fruitcakes with crystallized fruit, which I hate to death, but she just never gets it. Therefore, every time my mother bakes a fruitcake, we go through the same choreography. I ask if there was any crystallized fruit in it; she answers 'no'; and I start eating. After a while, I realize that there is something wrong. I try to persuade myself that it is the raisins' taste, but no, there are the goddamn crystallized fruits in the cake. I rage with veracity and challenge my mom. She tells me, of course she put in a small amount of that evil stuff (again), but she just cannot understand how I can still taste it. Me neither; I really love fruitcakes, but I just can't overlook those tiny bits that somehow manage to disturb the taste as a whole.

Falcongate's Disappear Here suffers from the same syndrome. Meant to be a hardcore-influenced pop-punk record (which is supposedly a good thing), dull song structures and weird mannerisms make it hard to be really enjoyable.

Falcongate started in 1994 in Gyula, Hungary as a straight-edge hardcore band and since has undergone a lot of changes, both in music and personnel. They left the boundaries of hardcore to be free and have 'fun' and earned a pop-punk sound, still carrying hardcore vibes. It is something like how New Found Glory wasn't afraid of using gang vocals on their last album, or how the Movielife used their Lifetime influence.

Hardcore-influenced pop-punk is supposedly a good thing, and Falcongate sometimes live up to that. Opener "Where's the Beat" is a powerful, driving song exploiting all the dynamics and melodies that can be used from these two genres. "Die for Roosevelt" has really exciting changes and strong tunes, and nearly all of the songs are super catchy, most notably "When You Leave." Still, Disappear Here does not provide an exciting listen. The record slips into homogeneity, as those catchy riffs are overexploited in verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structures. Nearly every song is over three minutes and, as in most cases in punk, less would be more.

The annoying bits of crystallized fruit unfold at closer "Credits." See, if you are a Hungarian band and you don't want to spend a lot just on playing music, you have to open to the mainstream -- for example, shoot a video for MTV Hungary, play on mainstream festivals, stuff like that. Falcongate always did really weird things when it was about gaining mainstream popularity, but now the brutal use of vocoder on "Credits" seems just too much for a band that still plays "I Don't Wanna Hear It" at shows. I liked them better for putting this album for two weeks up on their website for free download when it came out.

I still have to say, Falcongate is not a bad band and Disappear Here is not a bad record, certainly not for someone into pop-punk/hardcore. There are a lot of people around the world who actually like, and even more, doesn't feel their cake ruined by a few drops of crystallized fruit.